Think you know Alice? . . . think again

This just in from my erudite and knowledgeable young nephew Josh. Turns out that Alice Cooper is a born-again Christian (!) Who knew?? Read the story here:

"School's In" for Alice Cooper

It's funny because I flirted, ever so briefly, with the idea of taking Mitchell to the concert just to hear our favourite song ("School's Out"). But then he made his "he's kind of scary looking" comment and I abandoned the idea. And even had he wanted to go - how exactly would I have explained it to his Sunday School teacher the next morning when it would doubtless have come up in conversation??

And lastly, Josh & Michelle, what do you think of my use of commas (not to mention my tricky manouvering with the future perfect verb tense in the final sentence of the second paragraph)? Private joke . . . in case you're wondering, click here.

A Boy Named Alice

Beautiful sunny day today, so Jackson wanted to go for a bike ride. He likes to ride around in the parking lot of a certain stadium near our house. In particular, he likes to ride up the ramp and then go screaming down at top speed with no braking. He learned this from his older brother. Fortunately, the parking lot is usually empty and it's not a bad way to kill an afternoon. Well today the parking lot was almost empty. There were a few trailers and buses unloading and I didn't think much of it. Then I saw him standing at the bus, he gave Jackson a smile as he tore down the ramp on his bike . . . and I suddenly remembered - Alice Cooper is playing here tonight. Oh my, THAT is Alice Cooper! Sans make-up and a little tired looking, but is was definitely him.

I've never been to an Alice Cooper concert and I probably never will. But you have to love the song "School's Out". Classic. What school kid doesn't just love that anthem? When I first got an MP3 player and figured out how to upload songs onto it, it was one of the first songs Mitchell requested. When I told Mitchell that we saw Alice Cooper in the parking lot, he wasn't too disappointed that he had missed out on this brush with greatness. "He's kind of scary looking", was his comment. I'm sure it will be an interesting show - pure campy theatre, he's the original "vaudevillain".

And who can forget this Staples commercial he was in - hilarious. At least the guy does not take himself too seriously:

Itinerary Excitement

Ted & I met with our travel agent this afternoon. We're pinning down our destinations and working out the timing of everything. It's a complicated business. Details like the fact that flights from Western Samoa to Los Angeles (near the final stage of our trip, in June 2010) only occur once per week and always on a Tuesday, well these details affect other decisions and plans. But it's fun and exciting - it means things are growing more imminent.

We have a great travel agent. Her name is Leah and she works out of the Adventure Travel Company. When I first started looking for a travel agent, one person I knew told me to go to the ATC because they have experience in the "whole Round-The-World thing". Duly noted. Then, I ventured into a Travel Cuts office literally down the street and around the corner from me, thinking wouldn't this be convenient? They recommended we go to ATC since they did not feel they had the expertise to do the "whole RTW thing". So that confirmed it. And so that has become our travel agency and we highly recommend them if you want to go around the world.

They are helping us with a million little details and answering all of our (possibly stupid) questions. We spent a fair bit of time today trying to find an affordable safari that accepts children as young as 7 or 8 and covers the highlights of Kenya and Tanzania. And it has to be in either November or December 2009. We talked about the best way to get to Lesotho, the best routes through South-East Asia, health insurance, and trip cancellation/interruption insurance. We also had to do the number-crunching to make sure we were below the Star Alliance limit of 34,000 miles.

Right now, it's looking like Toronto-New York-Paris-Rome-Johannesburg-Maseru-Johannesburg-Nairobi-Dubai-Bangkok-Tokyo-Sydney-Auckland-Apia(Samoa)-Los Angeles-Vancouver. Whew! Once we make the actual reservation, we'll have about a week to pay up. And the cost for all of this? Perhaps for another blog posting . . . if you really want to know?? Let us know!